Street Fighter IV: Rose

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Another look at Street Fighter through Rose-tinted glasses.

By Mark Ryan Sallee

If you're a hardcore Street Fighter fan and you're not excited about Street Fighter IV, you're either playing too much Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, or you're crazy. Regardless, Street Fighter IV is shipping out on February 17th and is one of the most anticipated titles of 2009. Not only does the game bring fan favorites like Ken and Ryu back into the ring, but new fighters are on the way as well to make this an extremely appetizing roster. With so many fighters to talk about, we decided to go hands-on with each character on a daily basis, leading up to and beyond the game's release date. If you've been wondering how the newcomers feel or what sort of changes the series veterans have undergone, we'll let you know.

It's been a while since Rose made a Street Fighter appearance, her last outing in Street Fighter Alpha 3 some many years ago. Naturally, Rose carries over many of her familiar characteristics and unique fighting strategies that make her play unlike any other fighter in the game.

Rose's Soul Spark, a full-screen fireball attack, moves so slowly in jab form that Rose can chase it across the screen and combo off of it. The harder-hitting versions of the Soul Spark are much faster, but have lots more start up. Rose's fireballs will never let her win a projectile war against the more typical chuckers, but the Soul Spark does give her a safe attack from distance and a good poke against downed opponents.

But Rose has another tool for the fight against fireballs in the form of her Soul Reflect attack. Performing the quarter-circle-back motion with each of the three punch buttons yields a flick of her scarf that reacts differently to fireballs. Two of the buttons reflect the fireballs in different directions, and since she can Soul Reflect much more quickly than throw her Spark fireball, this gives her a better response to quick fireball chuckers like Sagat. Better still is the third variation of the Soul Reflect, which absorbs the enemy's projectile and converts it to super meter energy.

Her ability to build super meter off of enemy attacks lets Rose more frequently use her excellent super attack, the Aura Soul Spark, which can quite easily be comboed off of most any of her ground attacks, including three of her specials.

Her crouching medium punch is a better attack than it has any business being, with excellent range and priority, plus the ability to be canceled at any range. Rose players will want to abuse the quick punch's strengths, using it to poke at opponents and cancel into her Soul Spiral for a quick bread and butter combo.

Perhaps Rose's most deadly attack is her Illusion Spark ultra combo. Rose unfurls her scarf to grab hold of the opponent and shock the crap of him (or her). What's so dangerous about the attack is its priority and ability to grab opponents out of the air. If an opponent jumps in toward Rose, she can unload the ultra and almost guarantee free damage, forcing opponents to play defensively when Rose's ultra meter is pulsing.

If you'd like to check out the other Street Fighter competitors, click over to our character montage hub page for plenty of videos and our Insider channel for some slick desktop images. Of course, you could always just mosey on over to our full review to hear the whole story.